Page:La Fontaine - The Original Fables Of, 1913.djvu/82

remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden and despoil it in a hundred places.

I hate pompous and pedantic speeches that are out of place and never-ending; and I do not know a worse fool in the world than a naughty schoolboy—unless indeed it be the schoolmaster of such a boy. The better of them would never suit me as a neighbour.